{"id":19148,"date":"2024-03-28T17:11:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T22:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/norwoodlegal.com\/?p=19148"},"modified":"2024-10-14T10:45:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:45:03","slug":"why-does-this-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norwoodlegal.com\/why-does-this-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Tulsa brothers were wrongfully convicted in separate cases. How?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Site of a 1994 driveby shooting in Tulsa that led to two wrongful convictions. Image by G.W. Schulz<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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By G.W. Schulz<\/p>

Two eyewitnesses and night-time visibility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

That was all Tulsa County prosecutors needed in 1995 to send Malcolm Scott and Demarchoe Carpenter to Oklahoma\u2019s prison system for murder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

And there\u2019s more. Malcolm Scott\u2019s brother, Norwood.Law client Corey Atchison, was already in prison at the time for a wrongful conviction of his own.<\/span><\/p>

In the case of Malcolm Scott and Demarchoe Carpenter, they were both 17 at the time of their arrests and hadn\u2019t yet finished high school.<\/span><\/p>

They experienced the awkward transition from boyhood to manhood while locked up. It would take 22 grueling years for them to make it back into the sunlight. Carpenter and Scott were finally able to prove their innocence on May 13, 2016.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

But getting there meant having to fight for longer and with more evidence than prosecutors had needed to convict them. Their trial had lasted four days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The deadly driveby shooting that started it all took place at a party north of Tulsa on Sept. 10, 1994. A 19-year-old young woman named Karen Summers was killed and two other partygoers were injured.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

All along, the gun and car used in the shooting pointed to another man named Michael Wilson. He was childhood friends with Malcolm Scott before their lives took different paths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Tulsa police investigators knew all about this other man from the start. But they allowed the real killer, Wilson, to accept a plea agreement in exchange for aiding law enforcement. In return, Wilson faced only a fraction of the harsh prison sentences handed down to Scott and Carpenter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

According to a lawsuit <\/span>we later filed on behalf of Carpenter and Scott<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>

\u201cPlaintiffs have filed this lawsuit seeking justice for the unfathomable wrongs inflicted upon them. They hope to find and expose the full truth concerning their mistreatment. It is their sincere wish that not one other innocent person is ever again forced to endure prolonged imprisonment, indignity, pain, and humiliation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Keep reading for the full story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Accused of a crime? Hurt in an accident? Let us fight for you. Caught in a family, business, or personal-injury dispute? Norwood.Law will advocate for you the way we do for America\u2019s wrongfully convicted.<\/span><\/p>

Our work has earned Norwood.Law local, state, and national media coverage<\/span><\/a>. We also handle wills, trusts, and estates. Reach out by visiting Norwood.Law or calling 918-582-6464 for a consultation.<\/span><\/p>

Freedom slips away<\/b><\/h2>

Two key witnesses outside the party initially told police they couldn\u2019t see who was in the car that night. It was dark out. The car was moving quickly. Gunfire was bursting.<\/span><\/p>

Then they were more formally interviewed by police investigators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Suddenly, the two witnesses changed their stories. But they didn\u2019t seem committed to the new claims. One of the witnesses struggled to say affirmatively that Malcolm Scott and Demarchoe Carpenter had been in the car.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Prosecutors had no other major evidence in the case to present. There was no physical evidence at all. During the trial, they painted the picture of a heartless, gangland murder in a world that stopped caring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

That was enough for Demarchoe Carpenter and Malcolm Scott to be convicted and have their liberties taken away. The real killer, meanwhile, quickly went on to commit a gruesome new crime.<\/span><\/p>

One of the police investigators involved with this case was also enmeshed in the other high-profile wrongful conviction of Malcolm Scott\u2019s brother, Corey Atchison.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Bound and beaten\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>

Michael Lee Wilson, the alternate suspect, made a crucial admission in the earliest days after the shooting. He had not loaned his car or gun to anyone else. Both were tied to the murder.<\/span><\/p>

This fact didn\u2019t sway investigators.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Then, while Scott and Carpenter were locked up, Michael Wilson was out on bond in the case and free to commit new crimes.<\/span><\/p>

That\u2019s when he carried out a brutal murder. Wilson and three friends tied up the manager of a QuikTrip in the back of a Tulsa location. The man was then beaten mercilessly with dozens of strikes from a baseball bat until he died.<\/span><\/p>

\"The
The gunman in a driveby shooting went on to brutally murder the manager of a QuikTrip once located here. Image by G.W. Schulz\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Two of the friends from QuikTrip were also in the car with Wilson the night of the driveby. But they allowed Carpenter and Scott to take the fall while they tortured a convenience-store manager.<\/span><\/p>

According to a <\/span>later ruling in the QuikTrip case<\/span><\/a>: \u201c[The employee] was found beaten to death in a pool of blood, beer, and milk. Part of a broken set of handcuffs was found near his right hip. The medical examiner found a pin from these handcuffs embedded in [his] skull during the autopsy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Memory and the mind<\/b><\/h2>

Throughout their ordeal, Carpenter and Scott maintained their innocence.<\/span><\/p>

There wasn\u2019t just a lack of physical evidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The darkness that night and the movement of the car were enough on their own to make any attempt at identification remarkably difficult.<\/span><\/p>

\"Tulsa<\/p>

\"Tulsa
Tulsa home where a 1994 driveby shooting led to the death of a teen girl. Image by G.W. Schulz<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Michael Harris, the then-attorney for Malcolm Scott, said later that plea deals had been offered to the eyewitnesses in the case as enticements.<\/span><\/p>

But America\u2019s courts with time have gradually realized that eyewitnesses are not as reliable as we thought. A swell of studies in recent decades has shown that human beings are alarmingly worse at remembering faces and events than we thought.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Judges and juries and moms and flight attendants and police and teachers don\u2019t enjoy any special immunity from these limitations. An eyewitness can testify with all the sincerity in the world and still be tragically wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cThe ordinary person believes they can trust what they think they see,\u201d Defense attorney Harris wrote in an affidavit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Wrongful convictions are further fueled by cognitive biases that affect the judgments of detectives as well as everyone else on earth. They\u2019re wired into the construction of our minds to help us make decisions quickly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

But these biases can unintentionally cause errors and deviations from our desired goals. One of the best-known biases is \u201cconfirmation bias.\u201d As human beings, we tend to gravitate toward evidence that supports an existing hypothesis or viewpoint and pass over evidence that doesn\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u2018I didn\u2019t see\u2019<\/b><\/h2>

After the driveby took place that night in 1994, Tulsa police arrived to investigate. They examined .380 shell casings found in the street and took witness statements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Later they went to the hospital to interview two would-be witnesses who were at the party. Kenneth Price had been shot and injured among the young revelers. He told police that he did not see who was in the car or who fired the gun. He said his back was turned away. According to a transcript:<\/span><\/p>

Det. Gary Meek: \u201cKen, you sure you didn\u2019t see who was in that car?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Price: \u201cI didn\u2019t see who was in the car, for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

After police pressed him, however, his story changed. So did the story of another witness named Rashun Williams following police interviews. Now they claimed to be able to see the car\u2019s occupants through the dark night and could name the suspects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Price said later: \u201cThe police made me believe that I would be charged with the murder if I did not help them by saying Malcolm and Demarchoe were the shooters. After that, I went along with what the police wanted me to say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Tulsa police investigators first interviewed witness Rashun Williams at Tulsa Regional Medical Center. Like Price, Williams told police that he could not see the shooter. But then after being interviewed by Det. Meek that night, Williams\u2019s story changed. Now he claimed that Scott and Carpenter \u201ccould\u201d have killed Karen Summers.<\/span><\/p>

Citing this evidence and more, Norwood.Law is representing Malcolm Scott and Demarchoe Carpenter in a federal civil lawsuit over their wrongful convictions and over two decades in prison. It names the city of Tulsa and Tulsa law enforcement.<\/span><\/p>

Wouldn\u2019t let go<\/b><\/h2>

The most astonishing fact of all is that the real killer was in front of police all along, and he ultimately confessed to the driveby. Even he was perplexed about why police had focused so much of their attention on Scott and Carpenter. The gun and car had both pointed to Michael Wilson as the offender.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Yet investigators from the Tulsa Police Department and prosecutors from the Tulsa County District Attorney\u2019s Office refused to believe Wilson had pulled the trigger. Carpenter and Scott had to endure more than 20 years of confinement before a judge finally saw the truth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The prosecutor who sent Scott and Carpenter to prison in the first place later admitted the case was deeply problematic. He told the Tulsa World in 2014 that the witnesses kept giving conflicting statements. \u201cI quit interviewing them, because every time I interviewed them, they’d say something different. \u2026 It was one of those cases where I was thinking, \u2018Good God I hope that case doesn’t come back.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>